Shmup Ticker: What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[Steven]

Random advice I forgot to mention before: never bomb yellow planes. They are worth 200 each and come in formations of 6 or 8, so you will get 2200 or 2600 points in total including the 1000 point bonus for destroying all of them. A bomb is worth 3000, so if you bomb them just to destroy the formation you are both throwing away a minor amount of points and making it harder to survive at the same time because now you have less bombs.

Depending on the situation, it may also be beneficial in the long term to let white planes go if you know you are about to die and can't safely get the 1UP. The white planes spawn infinitely at random until two 1UPs have been dropped and after that the white planes stop appearing, so if you destroy the formation and the 1UP drops and you die before you pick it up, you just lost two lives instead of one and you can't get that 1UP item back. Still, if you are on your last life and white planes appear, you might as well do everything you can to get the 1UP.

Anyway, I played Kyuukyoku Tiger today and made it to 2-7 and got 4.12 million points, which is just under my 4.2 million score from a while ago. With some practice, I know I can beat that because I almost did without any practice or intent to do so. I forgot if I said I want to 2-ALL this game, but I do now. I really would like to beat Erppo's 8 million score and get the 10 million soft counterstop, but that will be difficult without serious practice. Loop 2 at max rank has Same! Same! Same! 1P bullet speed, so it's pretty terrifying.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I nearly 1CC'd Esp.Ra.De. Got the final attack down about halfway, if I hadn't gotten shot in the face by the super fast phase before I didn't know about I might've gotten it. Still, a bit more grinding and I think I've actually got this. I like Yusuke's design but honestly his shot sucks; the thin rapidfire isn't all that damaging compared to J.B. as both get a ton of damage from their subshot that fires explosive bubbles, and Yusuke's is wildly inaccurate. Plus, J.B. gets massive pointblank damage and can easily hit with 3 out of 5 of his spreadshots on a lot of enemies.

I can see why they didn't make a Yusuke clone for Espgaluda's Arrange mode; J.B. and Irori have much more interesting and memorable shot types.

[XoPachi]

I am playing RayForce again and I think it goes without saying, especially here, that this game is a masterpiece. One thing I'm realizing for myself is that this game tells a great story. If you get over the really dismissive idea that a video game plot can only be good if it's some 40 hour wordy melodrama, it's just a really excellent, simple tale that uses it's existence as an STG to very effective narrative strengths.

Spoiler

It's really the small things that meld together and highlight the tale unfolding without dialogue (text or spoken) or real cinematics. The seamless "descent" to the core of the planet has a wide gamut of emotional undertones. It's visual framing and music is really tied together by the autoscrolling nature of it being an STG. There are a lot of games that stress urgency but then let the player wander off to do minigames and meandering which undermines the supposed stakes. As an STG, RayForce is naturally paced perfectly to avoid that dissonance. The high arcade difficulty adds to the daunting pressure the protagonist is up against as she's facing an army. It's a simple story but it's difficult and is a difficulty imparted on the player to demonstrate a brutal quest.

There are a lot of moments where Zuntata's music and the depth of the sprite work cues a certain emotional response like when you finally break into the planet's core and see what Con-Human has really done to the Earth. The music goes from a sound of ominous mystery of "what am I about to discover" before you finally arrive at your destination only to see something that is both likely horrifying to the hero but also strangely impressive if wicked. The music changes to reflect this mood with a really calm, unobtrusive vibe. I also really like the upbeat shift in music for stage 3 as you descend to the surface. It's soft and sounds like rediscovering the natural beauty of the planet after living in a space colony.

And again, the adventure is seamless. There's no fade to black > next biome or even the usual score screen transition (not that either of these are bad). It doesn't even do the Gradius trick of having environments "melt away". You just continue on as it makes great use of scaling sprites to introduce new environments and exit previous ones. During all of this, the game is also not patronizing you. It frames it's story beats confidently, but it doesn't forget it is an arcade video game. The gameplay is not separated from the story. They work together. So the action never stops rather, it is tastefully curated to let the player absorb what is happening while still enjoying an engaging, replayable shooting experience. It's scoring gimmick of focusing on things in the background to destroy for points is not only an innovative venture exploring depth on a 2D plane, but allows the player to take in it's beauty and encourages paying attention to the very visual story being told.

It doesn't ignore or cut out what it is for it's plot. It embraces and celebrates these elements to bolster it's narrative. Obviously other games in STG's and beyond do this, but I think RayForce is especially noteworthy. What a great game.

[Randorama]

Beautiful write-up, XoPachi.

I would add the titles to the Stages summarise the core narrative ‘event’ of each Stage in a very precise manner. The ending theme, Q.D.E.P., Que Descansen En Paz, is a Spanish acronym for ‘May they Rest in Peace’. More can be found here.

[Daytime Waitress]

Seconded.

That's something I greatly appreciated in Devil Blade Reboot - that capacity to let a narrative unfold before a player, without for a second slowing the pace or bludgeoning them with reams of dialogue that read like a middle-schooler's interpretation of a shounen anime - and I'm glad you could articulate just how strongly it comes across in RayForce, Xo.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Good shmups that can communicate a story without needing much in the way of words are a rarity. I think the cinematics in Rolling Gunner are also really good at that. The ending sequence in particular is amazing.

I don't mind text either though; Drainus is a great game whose story mode has a fair bit of dialogue, but it and Giga Wing aren't too bad as they're one button to skip. If I have to mash through text or hold a button for a period of time it's a bit tedious to replay (holding Ctrl to skip text in Touhou isn't as graceful as just a button to skip the text, though using the text as a chance to take a quick break can be nice too).

I also like how in Giga Wing's airport stage, right before the boss, they took the time to draw an elaborate and detailed city background, only to blow it up and have it redrawn as a smoking crater, just to really piss you off and emphasize what you're fighting against. You don't even see the background in the boss fight or much beforehand, you're in the clouds once you're at the boss, so they drew two entire backgrounds just for one dramatic cutscene.

[copy-paster]

It doesn't even do the Gradius trick of having environments "melt away".

What if I told you that there is a Gradius game with no melt-away transition and instead it does the seamless cinematic approach like RayForce did? Look no further to Gradius: The Interstellar Assault on GameBoy and the release date even predates RF by 3 years earlier! Such a short but sweet adventure, with the final moment in the game being one of my most favorite scene in any shmup.

[BIL]

Marvellous writeup, Pachi! I'll only add, I've always loved the inversion of Space Invaders... now you're the hated intruder from beyond, and AI-dominated Earth is the monster in need of vanquish. A real Humans think about what you have done setup imho

It doesn't even do the Gradius trick of having environments "melt away".

What if I told you that there is a Gradius game with no melt-away transition and instead it does the seamless cinematic approach like RayForce did? Look no further to Gradius: The Interstellar Assault on GameBoy and the release date even predates RF by 3 years earlier! Such a short but sweet adventure, with the final moment in the game being one of my most favorite scene in any shmup.

Interstellar Assault is legit Arcade Kino from beginning to end. Great roving caper with some amazingly inventive-yet-efficient stage transitions. Could legit be subtitled Vic Viper's Bizarre Adventure, shit's always goin' sideways, only for your indomitable spacefighter to come out on top! Even shares a certain iconic setpiece with Rayforce, done in a bravura style all its own.

[Samildanach]

Gradius Interstellar Assault remains as one of my favourite gaming experience of all time. While so many other games best it, whether by visuals, gameplay, challenge or music, this game had a kind of magic to it that hypnotised me back in the day.

It's not perfect, the final level could have done with a bit more intensity to keep you sweating, and the last two bosses could be harder (the big gun wall that is my avatar is trivialised by the safe spots both in its 'face' and in the two notches in the wall railings; and the final pod's missiles being destructible mostly trivialises that fight also), but that game and Nemesis, also on the Gameboy, set my love for shmups in stone.

[XoPachi]

Was worried I'd come off pretentious. But I'm glad I got my feelings across. I kind of wanted to talk about this for a while. The words just finally came to me. Thank you.

What if I told you that there is a Gradius game with no melt-away transition and instead it does the seamless cinematic approach like RayForce did? Look no further to Gradius: The Interstellar Assault on GameBoy and the release date even predates RF by 3 years earlier! Such a short but sweet adventure, with the final moment in the game being one of my most favorite scene in any shmup.

You know, I never think of this one these days. You're right.

The ending theme, Q.D.E.P., Que Descansen En Paz, is a Spanish acronym for ‘May they Rest in Peace’. More can be found here.

That's a deep cut. I never knew this at all. That's such a fascinating detail.

[Jack Emerson]

I recently picked up DariusBusrt for Steam. Which seems to be more of a collection of titles, than one game. I have been mostly playing CS mode, probably because it fits my monitor better. Quick question: which version of burst do you recommend I invest my time into: [1] AC (32:9 arcade with branching paths) or [2] CS mode (16:9 console version with missions/saves/progression), or [3] Chronicle Saviors (32:9 liberating planets with progression and saves). Any recommendation on where to start?

[Aceskies]

I did reach the end of Radiant Silvergun, meaning I used a significant amount of credits to beat the story mode (more credits unlock with time of play). The game is ridiculously hard for me, and the scoring system does not help. At the end I am satisfied because I somehow got better at the game, and the game style is amazing, but I still feel really far away from playing it well. It is also annoying that the story mode becomes easier since you accumulte xp points therefore at somepoint the early bosses can be almost oneshotted.

I guess the next time I play I will go with arcade mode and will try to get as far as possible, but there are so many things that I don't like in the game that I won't put much more time into it.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I recently picked up DariusBusrt for Steam. Which seems to be more of a collection of titles, than one game. I have been mostly playing CS mode, probably because it fits my monitor better. Quick question: which version of burst do you recommend I invest my time into: [1] AC (32:9 arcade with branching paths) or [2] CS mode (16:9 console version with missions/saves/progression), or [3] Chronicle Saviors (32:9 liberating planets with progression and saves). Any recommendation on where to start?

If you want to play DariusBurst as featured in the arcades, a two-screen setup (enabled from options menu) is necessary to replicate it as originally intended (or if you have an LCD projector setup, sizing up the screen to measure exactly 64" diagonally is your next best alternative bet without dealing with the "dreaded" two-monitor screen gap issue that pops up/rears it's ugly head).

It's well-known that Darius Burst is running on modified Taito Type 2 arcade hardware to begin with on it's dedicated full-sized sit-down arcade cabinet setup (with sub-woofers integrated into the player seating benches for maximum impact/punch in the audio department as well).

It's reassuring to learn/know that the Steam port of "Darius Burst AC" is running the actual arcade rom itself for your point of reference/peace of mind + add a surround sound speaker/sub-woofer combo deal and you're all set in the audio department. You'll notice quite a difference it truly makes (especially with room-filling thundering bass if using a floor standing sub-woofer setup as there's no comparison/equal in going that particular route -- Wow!).

Just for fun, the Steam port of DB is playable/runs 100% without a hitch on the LCD/Oled endowed Steam Deck setup -- you might want to get one just for that "novelty factor" alone.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Jack Emerson]

If you want to play DariusBurst as featured in the arcades, a two-screen setup (enabled from options menu) is necessary to replicate it as originally intended (or if you have an LCD projector setup, sizing up the screen to measure exactly 64" diagonally is your next best alternative bet without dealing with the "dreaded" two-monitor screen gap issue that pops up/rears it's ugly head)..

I see there are a few 32:9 monitors for sale on amazon. Would those monitors give full screen exact(more or less) ratio?

[PC Engine Fan X!]

If you want to play DariusBurst as featured in the arcades, a two-screen setup (enabled from options menu) is necessary to replicate it as originally intended (or if you have an LCD projector setup, sizing up the screen to measure exactly 64" diagonally is your next best alternative bet without dealing with the "dreaded" two-monitor screen gap issue that pops up/rears it's ugly head)..

I see there are a few 32:9 monitors for sale on amazon. Would those monitors give full screen exact(more or less) ratio?

For Jack Emerson,

Yes, those 32:9 aspect ratio sized monitors would be perfect for Steam Darius Burst indeed (allowing for 1:1 screen matching based on the original Taito Type 2 hardware) -- you can't get any better than that. Just avoid the curved 32:9 monitors and get a traditional flat 32:9 based one instead -- the ol' adage of "the bigger the screen is, the more room needed" to place a 32:9 based monitor further away to be in the optimum "sweet spot," visual-wise.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Jack Emerson]

Yes, those 32:9 aspect ratio sized monitors would be perfect for Steam Darius Burst indeed (allowing for 1:1 screen matching based on the original Taito Type 2 hardware) -- you can't get any better than that. Just avoid the curved 32:9 monitors and get a traditional flat 32:9 based one instead -- the ol' adage of "the bigger the screen is, the more room needed" to place a 32:9 based monitor further away to be in the optimum "sweet spot," visual-wise.

Are there any other games which benefit form such a wide monitor? Even if not 32:9, are there any good games that do well with ultra wide?

Probably too much $$ for one game, but the good thing about being an old fart is I get too choose which toys to buy.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Yes, those 32:9 aspect ratio sized monitors would be perfect for Steam Darius Burst indeed (allowing for 1:1 screen matching based on the original Taito Type 2 hardware) -- you can't get any better than that. Just avoid the curved 32:9 monitors and get a traditional flat 32:9 based one instead -- the ol' adage of "the bigger the screen is, the more room needed" to place a 32:9 based monitor further away to be in the optimum "sweet spot," visual-wise.

Are there any other games which benefit form such a wide monitor? Even if not 312:9, are there any good games that do well with ultra wide?

Probably too much $$ for one game, but the good thing about being an old fart is I get too choose which toys to buy.

For Jack Emerson,

The Steam port of Darius Cosmic Collection Arcade from M2 has the 3-screen versions of Darius (which would be 12:4 aspect ratio to begin with) and the two-screen versions of Darius II/Sagaia (8:4 aspect ratio). I've seen a bumper sticker that says, "He who dies with the most toys, wins!"

The Taito AA port of Ninja Warriors supports the three screen setup (12:4 aspect ratio) as well -- it was an arcade pcb replacement/upgrade for those arcade operators/owners whom had existing three-screen endowed Darius cabs out on the arcade game room floor.

I recall seeing a three-screen Darius cab at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk amusement park in Santa Cruz, CA, back in May of 1988 -- which was quite unusual & a rare oddity for it's time. At my local Tilt! arcade joint, they had a three-screen Ninja Warriors cab set up and running back in the late 1980s -- which was another multi-screen endowed arcade title which was seldomly seen/played in the American arcades as well.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[davyK]

Vulgus,1942,Exed Exes. Pretty tricky little Capcom triathlon.

Playing them via Capcom Stadium on Steam. I knew 1942 was tough but Exed Exes is a real punisher too right from the off. Vulgus waits a while before baring its teeth.

It's annoying that those 3 games are split across the two Stadiums though.

[Jack Emerson]

Vulgus,1942,Exed Exes. Pretty tricky little Capcom triathlon.

Playing them via Capcom Stadium on Steam. I knew 1942 was tough but Exed Exes is a real punisher too right from the off. Vulgus waits a while before baring its teeth.

It's annoying that those 3 games are split across the two Stadiums though.

Don’t forget about progear on the stadium. It is a good port, but none of the stadium games recognize my arcade stick. Which is a bummer. Vulgus looks fun. May have to try.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

It is a good port, but none of the stadium games recognize my arcade stick. Which is a bummer.

Just use a copy of JoyToKey to map your stick to keyboard inputs then, that's an easy workaround!

[davyK]

Vulgus,1942,Exed Exes. Pretty tricky little Capcom triathlon.

Playing them via Capcom Stadium on Steam. I knew 1942 was tough but Exed Exes is a real punisher too right from the off. Vulgus waits a while before baring its teeth.

It's annoying that those 3 games are split across the two Stadiums though.

Don’t forget about progear on the stadium. It is a good port, but none of the stadium games recognize my arcade stick. Which is a bummer. Vulgus looks fun. May have to try.

Have a Hori RAP stick that works with Stadium just fine. Got it for the 360 but so far also works with anything on PC/Steam.

Into older school stuff at the minute. Playing a bit Legendary Wings too which was a favourite in the arcade.

[Jack Emerson]

It is a good port, but none of the stadium games recognize my arcade stick. Which is a bummer.

Just use a copy of JoyToKey to map your stick to keyboard inputs then, that's an easy workaround!

Sounds perfect. Never heard of it.

[Starfighter]

That's a great tool to have! Sure, it was of course more useful some years ago but there's still games being released that haven't gotten their inputs in order.

[AkitaRonin]

Yesterday got a little bit of BLUE WISH DESIRE gameplay out of my system
Still can 1cc Heaven no problem, but man, on this one I'm very rusty. Got half my PB score, which in this game means I died a lot

I love x.x games so much, BLUE WISH RESSURECTION + is a favorite of mine, such a delicious game to play. Controls like a dream and the Ketsui chip style scoring is always fun, be it for the audiovisual feedback overload or the routing. Makes you want to go one more game to see if you can route a little better, a little more efficiently. Can you do said thing better with other ship? Stuff like this. It's so addictive.
As a sequel, I do find DESIRE harder atm, and gotta get deeper into it sooner than later

Also, late to the party, but heck yeah, fantastic write-up, XoPachi. Personally, I love reading people write about stuff they enjoy in such detail, so yeah, to me at least, no pretension at all
Another STG I feel works narrative very well, but might be in virtue of how simple and straightforward it is, is Eschatos. Seamless journey through the many stages of an invasion, from the first wave to the center of a conquered moon, barely any loading, just fast straight to the point gameplay. It's really cool to me.

[LordHypnos]

Picked up shmups for the first time in a few years a couple weeks ago. Not sure how long it will last.

I started by playing a variety of games including:

Omega Fighter: I love the design of this game (other than the power-up dodging). I do feel like it would be a huge investment in time to try to get better at it though. Apparently I did at one point figure out how to get to stage 5 or 6, but I believe it was not as well emulated at the time, so there was probably bullets missing or something.

Blazing Star: I was once again surprised by how fun this game is, as I was the first time I played it in Calice Cup a few years ago. Didn't go long enough to beat my old PB though. I've pretty much forgotten everything about it since then. I think it's surprising, just because it seems like such a plain hori with not much to distinguish it, though I guess it does have a lot of scoring elements compared to other horis-with-charge-shots.

Hatenkou (Sharp X68000 doujin game): Played for the first time in a while, and it's quite fun. IIRC this is the first time I've ever made it to stage 4. The disk image that I have for it has starting lives set to 5, which is very unusual. I would not be surprised if whoever made it did not have it set to defaults. Unfortunately, the settings menu does not have an option to restore defaults, so I can't be certain.

For those who are unaware of this obscure game, Hatenkou is a hori from 1998 (IIRC). You have a recharging shield as your only emergency mechanic. When you get hit it will cancel all of the bullets on screen to point items, so you sort of want to bump into bullets while your shield is active, probably ideally when there are a lot of bullets onscreen, but because it takes so long to recharge it's quite dangerous to do. I suspect more of the score is down to not losing lives and killing a lot of things anyway. Otherwise, it's a fairly standard game. You get to have Gradius-style options and you can change between several formations with the B button. You get higher shot power and more options (up to 4) by collecting power-ups (not Gradius-style power-ups, though). The game is fairly generous with said power-ups, so you're unlikely to feel underpowered or suffer Gradius syndrome.

Elemental Master: I think I finally gave this enough time to get a feel for it. I've always loved the presentation and mechanics of it, but in the past I would always bump into a bunch of damaging stuff, or get boxed into a corner or something, and give up on it. This time I finally took enough time to get over that, and made it to stage 5 for the first time. Some of the greatest chiptunes of all time, of course. It's also surprisingly intense in a few places.

Castle of Shikigami II: Fun to finally be able to play this in translation. Was mostly playing Hyuga. I like the variety that exists in characters in terms of how they feel when playing them, and the stage design seems pretty solid overall. I have difficulty with how different Hyuga's focus shot is from his regular shot because it feels like sometimes you want to be micro-dodging while using normal shot, and in order to actually lock onto enemies with his focus shot you need to move in pretty close to them. I think I'm also just not really a fan of fast/slow movement in shmups. Nevertheless, I would probably have kept going with this longer if it hadn't been for getting sucked into...

Raiden Fighters Jet: While this game is not without it's frustrations, I really enjoy it. I'm extremely far away from my previous PB. From replays, it looks like at one point I actually knew how to dodge some of the boss patterns, which is crazy. I've mostly been trying to focus on unlocking X-medals in a timely fashion, and no-missing stages 1-3. I sort of wonder if it wouldn't be smarter for me to intentionally miss once in stage 3 though, as the fourth stage that you get from no-missing (the sky stage) has really bad bullet visibility. The other option is probably to get better at the first three stages so that I can just bomb spam through it. You get a lot of bombs in this game, and I have yet to get to the point where I'm using them all before dying.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I've been playing Espgaluda 2, it's the last of the Esp games I haven't cleared and it would be fun to finally tackle that one. I've actually made it to the final boss for the first time, with several deaths in stage 5 where you move horizontally sideways, so I think I'm actually really close to the clear. Stage 6 is quite brutal though, the two midbosses sucked away a lot of resources, lots I don't know how to handle without kakusei, but it feels close.

I'm also back to Donpachi and Progear. 1ccing them including the loops is a longterm goal, not sure if I'll ever accomplish these, but it's fun to have these as goals. Futari BL God and 1.5 Ultra are also distant "projects". Progear in particular feels like the most brutal of them due to checkpoints and having to learn entirely new patterns and attacks in loop 2. Donpachi isn't too bad in the loop with a few tweaks but largely many attacks remaining the same but with revenge bullets. I've made it to the 2-5 TLB fight once or twice, but with no resources whatsoever, so it's a matter of getting more confident at 2-4 and 2-5 to have some wiggle room for the TLB fight...

Omega Fighter: I believe it was not as well emulated at the time, so there was probably bullets missing or something.

It's fixed on current versions of MAME but yeah, a lot of bullets simply did not spawn on early MAME versions, so it was far easier than intended. While it's quite rough in singleplayer (the first stage where you enter the ship has NO POWERUPS WHATSOEVER), it's a fun game in co-op play to go for the 1CC with a friend since two people with the thin shot or one with wideshot, one with thin works pretty well. Also means you can carry double the resources!

Blazing Star: I was once again surprised by how fun this game is, as I was the first time I played it in Calice Cup a few years ago. I think it's surprising, just because it seems like such a plain hori with not much to distinguish it.

I think a lot of the appeal is the solid presentation of the game. I'm not sure the scoring system of having to wait around for the rainbow coloured x128 angels to appear is all that good, but the game itself is very fun to play for the 1CC at least.

[LordHypnos]

It's fixed on current versions of MAME but yeah, a lot of bullets simply did not spawn on early MAME versions, so it was far easier than intended. While it's quite rough in singleplayer (the first stage where you enter the ship has NO POWERUPS WHATSOEVER),

This does explain it

it's a fun game in co-op play to go for the 1CC with a friend since two people with the thin shot or one with wideshot, one with thin works pretty well. Also means you can carry double the resources!

Oh, that's pretty cool! It does make some sense as the slowdown mechanic benefits both players. Less power-up dodging that way, as well.

I think a lot of the appeal is the solid presentation of the game. I'm not sure the scoring system of having to wait around for the rainbow coloured x128 angels to appear is all that good, but the game itself is very fun to play for the 1CC at least.

I completely forgot about the x128 angels, LOL! Definitely an odd one. I vaguely remember learning about that when playing it for Calice. There are actually a couple other dimensions to scoring, though they are probably much less significant, like the secret letters and the medals, and I think I was getting some kind of multiplier for killing a lot of enemies in a line with the charge shot.

[XoPachi]

Playing both Andro Dunos games a lot this week. These games are really great. Haven't decided which one I like more. I think I'll end up gravitating to 2. I like Picorinne's work. But 1 is a really smooth game that I misjudged years back. Heavy Hellfire vibes.

EDIT: Just blind no missed Gradius Interstellar Assault on hard. Fun little adventure. Cute, humble game with fun little twists. Sadly ones that kind of rely on novelty but interesting to see on GameBoy in 91 for this genre. Love those STG's that feel like quests.

[Lemnear]

In between sessions of other games, I've been noticing that I've been opening USAAF Mustang a lot lately (and my beloved Penguin Kun Wars <3 ), I didn't think I'd like it this much and I don't understand why

[LordHypnos]

Been jumping around a bit between:

Dragon Blaze - Very fun game. Love the dragon shot. Quite hard. I tried playing on the lowest difficulty, and while overall it's quite a bit easier, there's still a lot of insta-death lasers in the last few stages, so I was unable to clear.

Zero Gunner 2 - A perennial favorite of mine, but I haven't played it for a long time. It's surprising how intuitive the rotation mechanic feels, definitely a lot easier for me to get a handle on than Cannon Spike.

Giga Wing - Also a perennial favorite. One of these days I'll actually to to clear this. I think it has a good combination of low initial difficulty and high scoring potential, as well as just having really fun bullet patterns. For whatever reason I find Takumi's bullet patterns to be the most fun.

Neko Navy - This one I didn't play for a long time as it felt way too laggy, but with the gamemode daemon and my monitor's game mode it actually feels just fine. Stage 6 on hard seems really hard to me at the moment. I guess I'll probably have to actually practice it if I want to get further. Really fun game, I can see why a lot of people like this one. Also great and pretty unique aesthetic and good music.